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I was greatly impressed by Mr. Johnson's sobering and honest presentation of the problems we face as authors after seeing him on a C-Span panel a week or two ago. I was impressed enough to join your forum. You just cut through the bullshit and hype. It also forced me to try to come up with a solution for a number of problems. Here is one I offer up here for discussion and critiques. For black authors facing low literacy rates in their communities, the suggestions I make here may be the new face of writing. Not necessarily the graphic novel. Comic books perhaps could have done the job but comics can't here. Why? Because many individual black comic artists and writers are not part of a disciplined publishing house with high editorial standards and with the socially responsible goals of producing comics to improve literacy in low income areas. Such a company would have to print comics on a not-for profit basis to be affordable to poor people and perhaps be more like quality YA genre fiction rather than Marvel and DC's current line of super heroic escapism. Nor would it be simply Classics Illustrated made trendy for today's youth. Economically it's not possible to bring quality comics to the poor or working class. Yet comics and cartoons can be very educational as well as entertaining but would require both a moral and artistic purpose rather than be driven by for profit motives. The price of comics today is no longer universal. In the old days, a rich or poor kid could buy a comic, now only children with big allowances and spending money can afford to collect today's more expensive comics. There were poor nerds in my working class black neighborhood in the Bronx. When I was a kid in the 70s even when the price went up to 25 cents I could still buy four comics for a dollar. Maybe that was my lunch/snack money, but it's a lot more expensive to buy four comics today. Comics have become another luxury product of advertising's shift to extreme demographic marketing, not just disposal income marketing as it was before. It has over several decades become more keenly focused on race, class and money, at least it seems that way to me. I also read a study about this shift in advertising, it is no longer aimed at just an all around American ideal customer or consumer, it's a careful manipulation of specific groups and incomes. They are aiming better at different targets. The good old days weren't all that good, but things have changed for the worse in some respects. It's not our fault that we live in a walkie-talkie society. Remember the fun of walkie talkies. This what the cellphones and texting has become for very lonely people. As writers we know reading requires moments of isolation. It seems more and more people are afraid to be alone with themselves or they don't have enough time. This may be one of the reasons the internet, cellphones, and social media are destructive to traditional storytelling in which the author creates not an interactive story, two way that allows the viewer, reader choices, but for the customer to find a quiet place to open himself up to other experiences not his own and then to find something of himself in those stories. Another C-Span panel discussed interactive media as the latest trendy thing. I don't know if any of you saw Devon Harris on C-Span talking about interactive media? If you haven't, check it out. Mr. Harris gave a simple example with a Spiderman trailer in which the customer had choices on which storyline he wanted to follow, Spidey getting the girl or saving the world. The studio then can also see what numbers in what demographic selected save the girl instead of the world scenes. This will then be used for further marketing purposes. The terrible thing about this process is that is tied to commercial bottom line thinking and is controlled by giant for profit companies sucking up to and pandering to audience escapism and ignorance. A much much easier thing to do than gently or kindly slapping them a few times to wake them up to serious and urgent realities facing the world. I think I figured out the biological basis of escapism. The addiction to escapism is not necessarily the conscious choice of people since what is happening in action adventure and violent movies of these escapist sort is the over stimulation of the flight or fight response. So their addiction seems quite natural to them. I know it sounds like a crackpot idea but this is what I suspect is happening. We see people in danger, facing death, near death who always escape, now with more and more magical powers and clever wit. It's what every animal wants to do when it's trapped or attacked, triumph over its enemy to survive to win the mate. This basic scenario is repeated over and over again in every escapist film, stimulating our reptilian brains. Not even old fashioned escapist literature can beat the power and wonder of this in special effects films for many people. And even more powerfully some prefer the simulation of violent video games. Who knows, one day they may get in our minds and replace our dreams. My dreams are still better than any special effects movie I've ever seen. But getting back to the problem at hand, what are black authors to do about the low literacy in their communities, we have to confront the loss of our status as authors. Given this decline of the author as a way for ordinary people to get to know the world and their humanity better, distant places, strange people, and interesting subject matter, we are like the Elves in Tolkien's magical world, our time is passing and the world will be worse for it—when I was a virgin reader I picked up Andre Norton's the X-factor and Starman's son, enjoyed them—fell in love with science fiction. Read Ray Bradbury. I never thought I needed to like Bradbury or Norton personally to enjoy their fiction. With some authors I really didn't care who they were as people. I only became interested in them as people when I wanted to become a serious writer myself and much much later. Now writers must define themselves in this celebrity cult of personality, mob-like sensation called the internet. An Alice's Restaurant of everything and nothing. The irony of the glut of information is that it destroys the individual value of everything. There is too much to see, too much to know, therefore nothing has much value. If everyone has gold, gold is of no value. Except for a few big name writers in the past writers did not make the best celebrities. Yet life needs the writer in isolation more than ever because the for profit industry is driven by very shallow and mediocre concerns. The high ideals of literature is not based on promoting knee jerk reactions. A writer's attempt to create secondary worlds is serious magic if done well and not for low purposes of mere entertainment. Tolkien's fiction was better left unfilmed for this reason, there is more depth of feeling in the books. There is success in mere entertainment but many of us are challenged by higher purposes. I'm not sure I've succeed to my satisfaction but I keep trying. We are sorcerers, you know. For the Readplay theater, the author must be able to reworks his novel into a semi-play format and use community, untrained actors to perform, in this case read and perform the work in a neighborhood or community setting, in front of this audience--either on the street or in auditorium, school yard, or gym. The author than can bring copies of the book for those who want to read the finished work. These plays can be filmed and uploaded to an author's website for further use. These can be organized locally within the author's community or beyond. This modern use of the traveling play read while partially being performed allows for non-trained actors to perform in a community setting, to learn as they do. By creating participation, one can instill the love of reading and writing back into the community. This direct participation of local people in the performance or reading of a work will help to develop literacy and interest in reading, performing and writing. It may also help revitalize a sense of community, even the idea of the fair. Overtly propagandist, dogmatic cultural works however risk boring the crowd just as much as work irrelevant to the lives of the ordinary people. Yet why not have genres, both high and low—why not have black people play whites in white face makeup? It could be like Shakespeare without much props or backdrops, the words will paint the scene...so in the readplay formating there is an Our Town Narrator or Chorus...with a little reworking one can break a novel down into this format. So if the higher purpose is your calling and your not shy like me here is what you can do to get your work out there. I'm also not culturally black so I couldn't do this. I'm not even sure I'd have the energy it would take. Maybe younger authors are best for this. Like Mr. Harris' discussion of interactive participatory media online, you'll have to take yours offline, and off the printed page and off the digital screen to get any result in terms of live bodies. It's what I'll call the GRIOT SOLUTION. Since black people in large numbers might not read fiction, live storytelling may still resonate in their blood because of the oral tradition. A combination of story telling and controlled psycho-drama—It will necessitate community and traveling theaters (for the readplay) block play parties, or street theater if no buildings will have you—but the big caveat, the silent elephant in the room is the class dynamics within the black community itself or rather not in the community. That is the best and the brightest with money don't live in the slums. This idea isn't necessarily the best idea for the middle classes, more ambitious good students or the successful, you have to find your audience and actors among the semi-literate locals, working class, among the loser's, the people nobody wants, though it would be good if middle class, educated blacks can participate as teachers and actors, too, helping to direct and develop this new community based idea of theater. I think if the idea fails, it will fail because black communities are segragated not only by race but by class as well. It will have to be a process of self-education, learning by doing, and even failing in public, it isn't meant to be perfectly professional but the goal is to try to be as much as possible. By reading and if possible memorizing some or of all it, the stress for the untrained actor can be reduced. Who know what great actors could be discovered this way. Also these can be filmed and uploaded on Youtube. If black authors are going to create a new market for their works, they can't jump on the bandwagon of the already sold, they have to create new markets. If the internet has made participation more important that reading alone or by yourself, then the artist must get more personal—not the facebook way, but by building community involvement and finding participants in the audience itself? Concentrating on audio book might also work with the idea that since people talk a lot, they may also be more inclined to listen than read. Given the use of iphones and ipads, authors should skip ebooks and do audiobooks. The advantages major companies have is their demographic research which tells them who to target. In terms of movies, for example, one text book on getting your film made distinguished between for profit producers and not for profit indies willing to accept certain risks for art types films, while for profit producers want to know who your audience is by age and income before you give them the pitch. Then test audience are used to further refine this commercial purpose. Yet literary artists ought to know as well where their potential audiences are in the landscape of consumer culture not necessarily to water down or dumb down content for profit's sake but is that the rub? If Shakespeare's plays were written for commoners as well nobles then it shouldn't be too hard, I would think. Well, I hope that helps. Let me know what you think.

Well, wc, I'm certainly not into Christianity or religion, myself, and would agree that much of it is a "cobbling together" of fables and myths. Which is why biblical charcters patterned after gods makes such good comic book superheroes. They lend themselves to simple morality stories where good triumphs over evil. Moreover, comic book dialogue is quick and simple and a painless way to introduce locked up black males to reading as a means of acquiring knowledge. These illustrated magazines could also serve as a gateway to books. The burgeoning popularity of animated movies seem to reinforce the idea that cartoons that don't tax their brains too much are a relaxing form of entertainment for the masses. As has been said, nobody would ever go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. I was a great fan of "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy but in retrospect when I view these movies on TV reruns, I find them a tad ludicrous. Why, I don't know. Golub was certainly amusing; false and trixy. When Boromir is playing out his death scene in the arms of Aragon, he pays homage to Aragon as his king and expresses a kinship with him as the leader who will save "our people". I always viewed that subliminal statement with a jaundiced eye. It was not so much the context of the story as it was in the life and times of the author, Tolkien. I am much more into "Game of Thrones" with its exquisitely evil villains and sensually-correct heroes and damsels. Who needs a wide-eyed Hobbit named Frodo when you can have a horny dwarf named Tyrion. Love was never truer than when it involves incestuous twins, leaders never more disposable than when they are indiscriminately slain, not to mention fire-breathing dragons with idle time on their hands, all of which contribute to the multi-faceted plot of this saga about power hungry people seeking to rule supreme. Life imitating art. I reviewed a book a couple of years ago entitled "The Savion Sequence" written by D. Amari Jackson. This book was reminiscent of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" but with an Afro-centric slant. The whole premise of its story was that the original Egyptians were black. Now, if we could just convince the present day Arabs calling themselves Egyptians of this. Black people may not be esteemed but they are ubiquitous. I understand there are black Mexicans as well as black Koreans. These minorites are well-kept secrets existing under the radar in these countries, leading second class lives. Can we assume since the first humans were the Blacks of Mother Africa, and all the other races were mutations of the Negorid stock that, like rebellious children, have forsaken their parents, dismissing them as being out of touch... I don't guess I need to tell you that in the course of your stream of conscious dissertations you come across as conflicted about not only your racial indentity but your racial affinity. To call you an elitist would not be an insult in my book. But, as such, you do leave yourself open to frustration because the average person is not sophisticated enough to understand the dynamics of your angst or the importance of your goals.

Did the Tolkien films censor it or was there some controversy about dreadlocks being used on some of the monsters, Orcs, in the film? I can't recall. Anyway even Tolkien could've used the black elves suggested in Norse mythology. I enjoyed the film but was also disappointed by this inability of whites to see beyond race. It was much easier since it was too much a boy's book to make changes for white female audience members than for black ones. I favor multi-racial casting like Peter Brooks' The Mahabharata. Peter Jackson couldn't or didn't want to do that. It was too risky, I guess. I hear Brooks was criticized for his version of the myth. Was that a case of racism, too?

Hi, Cynique and Troy--wanted to reply to each post individually but couldn't find the way to do it. So Cynique first. Yes, I've heard that some of the slaves were Moors, Muslim Moors and could read and write. I've got a book on Spain with Medieval paintings that depict these African Muslims. I remember this awful snobbish but smart critic (when it comes to wordplay) John Simon being so ignorant about casting a black in the role of Othello. He thought Moors were only Arabs and a black man shouldn't be cast. That and his awful rabid dislike and demeaning of Barbara Streisand (he considers her terribly ugly) are two things I remember most about him. I didn't even know there were blacks in Irag until a few months ago. It maybe the Arab world's biggest secret? I'm agnostic, I must tell you, very skeptical, not quite an atheist however. Chick comics is also an interesting use of the comic strip method. Of course the art was pretty basic in some of them. Without fuss or fanfare, Chick will always turn up somewhere. On the bus on an empty seat, in thriftstore's used books, I have a few of them, there are a great way to communicate basic facts, history or ideas--these little pamphlets. Well, I wish your son luck in his good works and efforts to inspire people, though I think prisoners need to read not just the Bible. There is an interesting mix of paganism and Christianity in Africa that's very strange to me. A Jewish author wrote an interesting book showing how much of the Old Testament Bible is really Egyptian mythology and history. Hi, Troy, I once went to an Afrocentic meeting, only one time I'm sorry to say--I don't know if you know the gentlemen that ran a black store down here in Broward County--I think a Mr. Harrison, a nice, fine gentleman, on Broward Blvd? I'm too much of an individualist for group think-- to be part of any culture it may be necessary to have a group mind set to have a certain level of unity and strength but that's not for me. I did find the ceremony or moment to acknowledge our ancestors very moving. I think I pissed him off though when he held a library event to discuss some Afrocentric matters and I contradicted him with an opposing view. He used Caesar’s claim that the Druids or Northern Europeans practiced cannibalism, if I'm not misrepresenting what he said, it might be a decade now since, and I quoted a Roman saying that Northern Europeans were inferior to Romans because they lived in the cold regions and the Romans lived in an ideal climate and so were superior. I said if the Romans could denigrate other whites they were attempting to subjugate why should we take Caesar’s word for it. Maybe it was Roman propaganda, wasn't it the same way the colonists described natives of Africa and America. I used go to his bookstore looking for the latest Ivan Van Sertima books. I felt sorry that i might've offended him or embarrassed him in front of the white librarian and a friend of mine. It was just three people, the white Librarian, me, my friend a black woman. Nobody else showed up. That's the thing, the people that should've showed up didn't. I don't think I saw many young people at the meeting where we started out by remembering the ancestors. Well, as you say, maybe now that these are harder times people might join in more. It was many, many years ago. I read Stolen Legacy but I don't believe that it was theft but that the Ancient Greeks probably were influenced and inspired by the Ancient Egyptians. I guess I'll always be an outsider to whites and blacks. I'm very analytical and that perhaps makes me overly critical. I'm a contradictory person. I do believe the ancient astronaut theory is a refusal on the part of some whites impressed by these achievements to acknowledge the earliest ancient Egyptians were blacks or a mixture of blacks and Semites. I got interested in the Sumerians for a book I was writing. And it bothered me that nobody mainstream noticed that "Blackheaded" made no sense. Given new genetic data on when whites became whites, it's more likely that the earliest peoples were blacks of some sort. I don't believe the Ancient Egyptians were perfect people but flawed as all human beings are. You're very right about the tribalism in Africa. There is a great deal of irony in the tragedy of Africa today. It being the birth place of humanity. Sure, some of it is the fault of colonialism/imperialism past and present but the other half is human nature or our baser natures. Well, I hope I've not offended you, too much.